[CLUE-Tech] Slashcode

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Thu, 17 Jan 2002, Todd A. Gibson wrote:

> > > I've wondered, occasionally, how well a weblog would work for CLUE
> > > discussions. SlashCLUE anyone? Err, TwiKLUE?
> >
>
> On the tangent of Slash code, I thought I'd pass on impressions for
> those considering using it.  I recently set it up for UCD's School of
> Education so their doctoral students could use it to produce an online
> journal (http://novations.opencentric.com, click on "Explore the
> Journal")
>
> Impressions:
> 1) Despite efforts to document the thing, it is still poorly documented.
> Expect to spend at least a day getting comfortable with it once it's
> installed.

Have you written any extra docs? I'm sure that if you've gone
the distance with it, you'd be able to add to the docs significantly.

> 2) There are a few quirks (read "bugs") with the stock installation but
> they aren't catastrophic (such as the submissions system being a little
> sloppy on the admin side).
>
> 3) It performs well for the "stock" settings, but more bugs are
> uncovered when you try to customize it.  Being fluent in Perl definitely
> helps if you want to customize it.

Do you have any patches for others who might want to try Slashcode?
Or are the customizations too specific for general use?

> 4) It is a resource hog.  My current server is an old 266MHz 128Meg
> system.  It was humming along nicely until the Slash code came along.
> Now it bogs heavily if >5 people access the slashsite at the same time.
> Sigh.  I'm expecting my 1U Raid-1 yummy nummy server to arrive in the
> mail next week to replace it.

I think that's true of any tool that generates a dynamic Website from
Perl/PHP with a SQL backend. Not quite sure what you were running
on it before, but there's a big difference between serving static
pages and dynamic pages. When I started working for LinuxMall the
site was static and served up >100,000 page views a day from a
Pentium Pro w/128MB of RAM IIRC. When we moved to a dynamic site
we were using a dual Xeon with a GB of RAM.

That being said, it might be that Slash is a bigger hog than other
systems, but I haven't tried it. It might be a fun experiment, though.

> 5) Despite any comments that are disparaging to slash code, I am
> using it and it has definitely been worth the effort.

I bet the LDP folks would love you forever if you were to contribute
a HOWTO. I'd be willing to help author one with you if you want.

Take care,

Zonker
--
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier -=- jbrockmeier at earthlink.net
http://www.DissociatedPress.net/
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My
idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own,
so both of them together is certain death." -- George Carlin